At the last election, Deputy Premier Peter Ryan promised to investigate stories about black panthers and pumas which date back to World War II.

In 2000, a cow was found at Yarram with large circular claw-like scars on his hind flank from an unknown animal.

Mr Walsh has refused to say how much the study will cost, how many staff will be involved or how long it might take.

But he says the resources will come from the state's wild dog control program.

"As time comes available, the first priority for resources was doing work on the wild dog program," he said.

"There is a lull in the research side of it and the planning side of it and staff will be doing this work [on big cats] in that period.

The Opposition's Agriculture spokesman, John Lenders, says the Government has its priorities wrong.

He says the resources should be used to research coal seam gas exploration or to strengthen the wild dog control program.

"If you've got spare public sector time, surely you'd start looking at how to iron out the glitches in the fire services levy running late or any other areas that people are looking at, [rather] than chasing this particular story," he said.